Pages

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Broadband

(This topic moved from Community Partnership)Yes, download speeds are always the focus - but upload speeds are so incredibly poor. Fibre optic would enable both upload and download to be a great deal speedier than present. The copper wiring they have currently at the exchange, and which carries the speeds to your house, just aren't up to large streams of data. So changing this to fibre optic would give you much higher speeds. The issue with video conferencing is having quick upload speeds - ie using Skype to share screens and documents etc. Just trying to currently send any file larger than 200mb takes up to 2 hours + (if you're lucky).

There are a great deal of photographers in this area for instance, and I can only imagine their pain at having to wait hours to upload high quality resolution images. Imagine how this would be for large businesses trying to work over the exchange.

i think if we looked across the country, download speeds aren't brilliant, but - as you rightly say - upload speeds are never mentioned. I know they're laying the fibre optic in Bournemouth, so it really needs this council to step up and make a case (however realistic) for Swanage to get on a list - make it attractive to BT, tell them the businesses and home workers that would benefit. BT - as much as i hate them! - could be convinced to be part of providing employment for the local community etc.

I'm a filmmaker and attempting to upload my films (3min promo pieces, 300-400mb in the main) to YouTube and my website has proven to be almost impossible at times. Let alone actually sending the files to clients (I email via yousendit over night). You can get round the problems, but if a number of people were to upload large files to send at once, we would have a serious problem. I know of a fair few farmers who have been unable to send livestock forms etc back due to poor connections in more rural areas - downloading the forms are fine, but problems in uploading anything has proven to be very costly business wise. Add to that, once you have more home workers (should be the future with no new offices available in town or businesses willing to move here) sending files and creating websites to fill with content, the current system really won't be able to cope.

14 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Agreed - the copper wiring we are using is years old and barely fit for carrying audio from phones, let along large data files like pictures and video.

2/3 people who live in rural areas like Purbeck say they on the internet to either work remotely or run their own businesses. Not good when the service goes down at peak times most days because more people are using those knackered old copper cables!

I cannot see how swanage can futureproof itself without investment in decent broadband infrastructure now to enable the next generation to live and work here.

Are the people who want to make a case for faster broadband willing to get together and put in tome and effort to press for it? Can one of them do some research and produce a brief document showing how comparable places that are getting it sooner than we are went about this.

Are we talking about the town council or the district? I am a little surprised if you are expecting municipal investment. Has it been forthcoming elsewhere? You certainly will benefit from their endorsement but I will surprised if there is any capital available. It would be nice If I was wrong.

Forgot to add, could the paper that went to the council be posted on line if it has not already been please and if could you try to get Nico to put something from you in the Gazette it may get some support. If a reasonable number of people ask their councilors to do something there is a lot more chance of it happening.

I live at Peveril and the B Band has become progressively worse over the last 10 years, in spite of alleged advances. I go along with the increase of traffic on the old GPO/BT telephone cables. However, when I did national Service in the Royal Navy Communications Branch, (1958-60), we used teleprinters/telex which had its own cable network inside pressurized pipes for security, if the pressure dropped keyboards locked. With the development in radio communications the Defence Teleprinter Network became redundant years ago, but I wonder if it is still there physically connecting Lulworth, Blandford, Portland, all the old Civil Defence/Police establishments to the nation and if so could it be used for fibre optics? So could the Defence National Pipeline put down to transfer fuel in the event of a nuclear exchange during the Cold War. Dorset is criscrossed with networks just laying there.RobO

ShareThis

There was an error in this gadget

This site is intended for the exchange of information about anything that affects the people of Swanage (and neighbourhood). Please mind your language and avoid saying anything malicious, defamatory, untrue, racist or potentially libellous. Any posts that become too provocative, insulting, threatening or otherwise unpleasant will be deleted.To add your COMMENTS: click on Post Comments, leave your comment, then you may set up an account for future use or click Other, and leave your name or not, as you wish. Or select Post Anonymously (you can leave your name at the end of your post) but please at least use a nickname of some sort, so people can follow your comments. The moderator of this site is Mike Hadley (The Postman).